China Only Has One Time Zone—and That's a Problem - The Atlantic The Atlantic See our Newsletters > China Only Has One Time Zone—and That's a Problem The Communist Party's decision to use Beijing time across the country, done to enhance “national unity,” has backfired in Xinjiang. Most Popular Print Text Size Many members of Xinjiang's Uighur ethnicity use a unique time zone two hours behind official Chinese time. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Imagine that you've found yourself in Kashgar, the western-most city in Xinjiang, China’s western-most region. Your friend sends you a text message and tells you to meet him at 3 pm. Sounds pretty straight forward, right? Not in Xinjiang. If your friend is of China's majority Han ethnicity, you can assume that by 3 o'clock he's referring to Beijing Standard Time. But if your friend is a Uighur, the largest ethnic minority group in Xinjiang, he might be referring to “local time,” which is two hours behind. The reason for this confusion is simple: China, a country that is of roughly similar size to the continental United States, has one time zone: Beijing Standard Time.

This means that when it's 6 o’clock in the nation's capital, it’s 6 o’clock almost 3,000 miles further west, in Kashgar. Allison Schrager, in her widely circulated article from last week advocating that the continental U.S. reduce its time zones from four to two, cited China as an example of why such a change would be less problematic than people would expect. Maybe so, but the single time zone does present odd sights: In the summer, for instance, it isn’t uncommon in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, to see people enjoying a beautiful sunset ... at midnight. Or for the sun to rise there in the winter around 10 AM. In order to accommodate people inconvenienced by the time zone change, shops and restaurants in Xinjiang often adjust their hours—but the effect can still be disorienting for the unaccustomed traveler. Related Story Daylight Savings Time Is Terrible: Here's a Simple Plan to Fix It China hasn't always had one time zone.

In 1912, the year after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the newly empowered Republic of China established five different time zones in the country, ranging from five and a half to eight and a half hours past Greenwich Mean Time. But in 1949, as the Communist Party consolidated control of the country, Chairman Mao Zedong decreed that all of China would henceforth be on Beijing time for the purposes of national unity. Given the state of the nation in those days, Mao’s reasoning was legitimate: Just two decades before, China was a fragmented country, with large swathes (such as Xinjiang) beyond the de facto control of the central government. And this decision to unify the whole country under one time zone was hardly unprecedented: newly-independent India, for example, had instituted a similar policy just two years before. For most people in China, the single time-zone is at most a mild inconvenience, a scheduling quirk that simply requires a little adjustment. But in Xinjiang, the question of time divides the region’s population.

Among Han Chinese, Justin Jacobs, a Xinjiang expert at American University, told me, use of Beijing Standard Time is universal: “that there’s another clock is not even something the Han think about.” But much of the Uighur population prefers to use their own time. In Urumqi, a city in Xinjiang's east populated mostly by the Han, Beijing Standard Time suffices. But as you head further west, into areas further away from Beijing (and with a higher concentration of Uighurs), knowing “which time” to use becomes trickier. In Xinjiang's extreme west, near China’s border with Pakistan, Beijing Standard Time is so irrelevant that it isn't even used on bus timetables. Why does this discrepancy exist? For the Uighur population, using their own time is more than just restoring the clock to a more natural equilibrium: it’s also about politics. As hope for greater autonomy within China has faded—due to a combination of government suppression and Han migration—Uighurs consider their time as, in the words of the writer Ruth Ingram, a psychological tool for independence.

Over the last six decades, Uighurs have chafed under Beijing policies that have restricted their ability to study in their language and practice their Islamic faith and rendered it difficult for them to cope in a Han-dominated Chinese society. Within Xinjiang, Uighurs and Han populations are largely segregated, breeding resentment that occasionally boils over into violence. Most recently, Chinese authorities arrested three Uighurs in connection to a jeep collision in Tiananmen Square last week that killed two and injured 40. Beijing has blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Group, a UN-designated terrorist organization that supports Uighur independence, though others have doubted its ability to pull off such an attack. In any event, the Tiananmen episode seems assured to worsen an already tense situation in Xinjiang. On the list of causal explanations for Han-Uighur tension, the use of Beijing Standard Time in Xinjiang would rank low. But the time zone issue does represent, in a way, the limits of the Communist Party’s approach to its westernmost province. Since gaining control of China in 1949, the Party has attempted to smooth out the country's vast regional differences by using policies to affirm, occasionally by force, national unity.

But in treating a vast, complex region like Xinjiang as just another Chinese province, Beijing has prevented the population from forging a trans-ethnic identity, one based around Xinjiang's unique geography and distance from Beijing. Whatever China decides to do with its time zone may ultimately matter little to the country’s political or economic situations—but re-thinking the logic behind instituting the time zone in the first place could instead pay dividends. The Time Now: What Time Is It Additional sections provide information about the stars , the galaxies , cosmology , how to observe the sky , and space probes. If all of that knowledge fascinates you, we'll also provide information on how to become an astronomer and a description of the job . The Time Now also offers comprehensive local business directories with opening and closing times in many countries, such as United Kingdom , Sweden , Germany , Poland , Norway , Denmark , Netherlands , Finland , France and Italy . Each country's local business directory is available from its translated version of the website. In case you need a specific conversion, we provide many useful tools such as: A time zone converter that will help you find the time difference between two cities or two time zones.

An international meeting planner , to find the better time for a meeting with people around the world. A dialing codes helper , to help you make a phone call between two locations. A distance calculator , to find the air distance between two cities. A currency converter , to convert more than 150 currencies worldwide. The Time Now is currently available in 29 languages. It is used by millions of people worldwide each month as a valuable resource for information, knowledge, and a means of planning and understanding time around the world. The Scientific and Philosophical Concept of Time Before one can understand time zones, daylight savings, and other methods of measuring time, it would be best to have a grasp of how science defines this concept. Beyond science, this concept is also highly researched and discussed in the realms of religion and philosophy. We cannot reach out and grasp it, nor can we watch it pass, and yet time exists anyway. It is defined as "a measure in which events can be ordered from the past, through the present, and into the future. It also measures the durations of events and the intervals between them." What we can see, feel, and touch is known as the spatial dimensions. These are the first, second and third that we all know.

Time itself however is referred to in science as the fourth dimension. When measuring things such as velocity and repetition, we are using standard units of measurement such as seconds, minutes, and hours. This is known as the "operational definition of time." It's purely scientific and doesn't seek to understand the concept in any philosophical way. Of course, the lines begin to blur when scientists try to measure space-time events and other elements of the universe around us. Trying to truly measure time is a goal that science continues to struggle with. Proper measurement is crucial in all manners of scientific fields like astronomy, navigation, and many more. Currently our international system of measurement is based on events that repeat at certain intervals. The movement of the sun through the sky, the phases of the moon, the beating of a heart, these are all means of measuring time's apparent flow. In terms of philosophy, there are two major beliefs regarding time and its existence or lack thereof. This first approach is named after Sir Isaac Newton. He believed that time was a part of the universe, that is exists as a separate dimension independent of our own where events occur in sequence. In one of his works, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he spoke of absolute time and space.

The concept spoke of a "true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equally without regard to anything external." Things like motion and the "feel" of time were not true concepts of the term. He called these things "relative time" and they were the only concepts we could grasp as a species. The other side of the coin is a theory posed by two famous philosophers by the names of Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant. This secondary theory is more simplistic, it simply holds to the belief that time is not a thing or a place. Given this truth, it cannot be measured accurately or traveled through. A History of Measuring Time: Calendars and Clocks Chronometry is the science of measuring time and it comes in two different forms: the calendar and the clock. When seeking to measure a length that is less than a day, the clock is used. Measuring something that is longer requires the use of a calendar. Let's examine how these two fundamental tools came to be. 1. A Brief History of The Calendar The first calendars were used as early as 6,000 years ago, based on artifacts discovered from the Paleolithic era, and were dependent on the phases of the moon.

Known as lunar calendars, these early versions had between twelve and thirteen months to each year. These calendars weren't entirely accurate, however, because they didn't account for the fact that a year is roughly 365.24 days. Calendars measure days in whole numbers so a method called intercalation was introduced that adds a leap day, week, or month into the calendar when needed to keep the measurements accurate. Julius Caesar decreed in 45 B.C that the Roman Empire would use a solar calendar and it became known as the Julian calendar. This version still suffered from a lack of accuracy because the intercalation it used caused the annual solstices and equinoxes to throw off the measurements by as much as 11 minutes per year. A second type of calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. This was known as the Gregorian calendar and it is now the most commonly used version today. 2. A Brief History of the Clock Horology is the study of devices used to measure time. This pursuit dates back to 1500 BC when the Egyptians created the first sundial. This stationary device uses a shadow cast by the sun to measure the passage of hours throughout the day.

These devices were accurate only during the day however. A more accurate solution was something called a water clock that was also used by the ancient Egyptians. The actual origin of these devices is not known, but along with sundials these were the first tools used to measure time. The water clock functioned by creating a set flow of water that could be used to measure the passage of time. It required constant maintenance though, otherwise the water would run out. Many ancient civilizations were very focused on keeping accurate measurements of time because they used it to track their astronomical findings. Water clocks were used consistently until the middle ages. The use of incense, candles and hourglasses were also prevalent. While mechanical clocks did make an appearance as early as the 11th century, it wasn't until new methods like the pendulum clock were made by individuals like Galileo Galilei and Christiaan Huygens that they became reliable. Today the most accurate tool for measuring time are atomic clocks. These incredible devices can maintain a pitch-perfect accuracy for millions of years . They are so accurate in fact, that they are used to set other clocks and GPS systems. Instead of using mechanical or repetitive methods, these clocks measure atoms as incredibly low temperatures.

An atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado called NIST-F1 is used to define the standard time for all of the United States. It is located in the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This clock's accuracy means that it won't be off by a single second for at least 100 million years. This is all based on the internationally defined standard for what constitutes a single second : "The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom." By measuring these caesium atoms at incredibly low temperatures, atomic clocks can track time almost perfectly based on this established standard. International Time Measurements Our modern society requires us to have a set standard for how we measure time. The most basic means of doing this is known as International Atomic Time (TAI) and measures seconds, minutes, and hours by coordinating atomic clocks around the world. Since 1972 we've utilized Coordinated Universal Time or UTC. It follows the TAI standard with slight changes known as leap seconds to ensure that it remains synchronized with the Earth's rotation.

This standard replaced the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) but the two terms are still used interchangeably. The reason for the replacement was because the GMT method used telescopes and solar time to set the standard instead of the more accurate method of atomic clocks. Despite the time standard changing, the location of Greenwich is still used a basis for measuring coordinates. While the measurement of time is standardized around the world, there is also a means of defining the exact time of day in various regions known as time zones. This is another internationally observed standard that offsets the UTC time depending on the location. These zones were implemented for legal, commercial, and social reasons and are usually placed along the boundaries of countries or states in the U.S. For the most part these zones offset the time by a whole number of hours but in some cases the change is only thirty or forty-five minutes. The concept of these time zones was first suggested 1858 in a book written by Quirico Filopanti called Miranda! This concept was not used but it did lay the groundwork for others to follow. The invention of them is attributed to Sir Sanford Fleming but even his concept was modified heavily into what we use today. The adoption of time zones was slow and gradual.

The last country to implement the use of today's standard was Nepal in 1986. All of today's modern countries use time zones in some way, shape, or form. The idea is the same, as is the standard measurement of time, but the implementation of them varies. For example, China and India both utilize a single time zone despite the fact that their countries are wider than the fifteen degrees of longitude that usually dictates a time zone. A Tool for the Ages With technology and research we've continued to grow and expand our knowledge of time, but we still have many questions unanswered. What we do have are very specific methods of measuring it around the world though and The Time Now is here to provide you with all of that information and more. Our tools are always up-to-date and our database of information is constantly expanding and growing. We are the penultimate resource now and into the future. World Time Zone Map - Time Zones of All Countries World Map / Time Zone Maps World Time Zone Map Search for any Time Zone Map ----Select----- Disclaimer Close Disclaimer : All efforts have been made to make this image accurate. However Compare Infobase Limited,its directors and employees do not own any responsibility for the correctness or authenticity of the same.

Time Zone Maps in Different Languages: List of Time Zones by Country Country UTC+05:00 — Heard and McDonald Islands UTC+06:30 — Cocos (Keeling) Islands UTC+07:00 (CXT) — Christmas Island UTC+08:00 (AWST) — Western Australia UTC+09:30 (ACST) — South Australia, Northern Territory UTC+10:00 (AEST) — Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania UTC+10:30 — Lord Howe Island UTC+11:00 (NFT) — Norfolk Island Austria 4 UTC−05:00 (Brasília time −2) — Acre and Southwestern Amazonas UTC−04:00 (Brasília time −1) — Most part of the Amazonas State, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima UTC−03:00 (Brasília time) —The South Region, the Northeast Region (except some islands), Goiás, Distrito Federal, Tocantins, Pará, Amapá UTC−02

:00 (Brasília time +1) —Fernando de Noronha, Trindade and Martim Vaz, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago Botswana Canada 6 UTC−08:00 (PST) — larger western part of British Columbia, Tungsten and the associated Cantung Mine in Northwest Territories, Yukon UTC−07:00 (MST) — Alberta, some eastern parts of British Columbia, most of Northwest Territories, Nunavut UTC−06:00 (CST) — Manitoba, Nunavut (between 85° West and 102°W except western Southampton Island), Ontario , Saskatchewan except Lloydminster UTC−05:00 (EST) — Nunavut east of 85°W and entire Southampton Island, Ontario east of 90°W UTC−04:00 (AST) — Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, eastern part of Quebec UTC−03:30 (NST) — Labrador (southeastern), Newfoundland Cape Verde UTC−01:00 (Cape Verde Time) Central African Republic UTC+08:0

0 (Chinese Standard Time) Chile UTC−04:00 — Thule Air Base in Greenland UTC−03:00 — most of Greenland, including inhabited south coast and west coast UTC−01:00 — Ittoqqortoormiit and surrounding area in Greenland's Tunu county UTC — (GMT) — Danmarkshavn weather station and surrounding area in Greenland's Tunu county, Faroe Islands UTC+01:00 — (CET) — metropolitan Denmark Djibouti Democratic Republic of the Congo 2 UTC+01:00 (WAT) — western part of the country UTC+02:00 (CAT) — eastern part of the country East Timor UTC−06:00 (GALT) — Galápagos Province UTC−05:00 (Ecuador Time) — main territory of Ecuador Egypt UTC−10:00 — most of French Polynesia UTC−09:30 — Marquesas Islands UTC−04:00 (AST) — Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin UTC−03:00 (PMST) — French Guiana,

 Saint Pierre and Miquelon UTC+01:00 (CET) — Metropolitan France UTC+03:00 — Mayotte UTC+05:00 — Kerguelen Islands, Crozet Islands UTC+11:00 — New Caledonia UTC+12:00 — Wallis and Futuna Gabon Indonesia 3 UTC+07:00 (Western Indonesian Standard Time) — islands of Sumatra, Java, provinces of West Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan UTC+08:00 (Central Indonesian Standard Time) — islands of Sulawesi, Bali, provinces of East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, East Kalimantan and South Kalimantan UTC+09:00 (Eastern Indonesian Standard Time) — provinces of Maluku, North Maluku, Papua and West Papua Iran UTC−04:00 (AST) — Caribbean municipalities and constituent countries UTC+01:00 (CET) — main territory of the Netherlands Kiribati UTC+09:00 (Korea Standard Time) Kuwait UTC+03:00 (Arabia Standard Time) Kosovo UTC+08:

00 (Macau Standard Time) Macedonia UTC+08:00 (Malaysian Standard Time) Maldives 4 UTC−08:00 (Zone 4 or Northwest Zone) — the state of Baja California UTC−07:00 (Zone 3 or Pacific Zone) — the states of Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora UTC−06:00 (Zone 2 or Central Zone) — most of Mexico UTC−05:00 (Zone 1 or Southeast Zone) — the state of Quintana Roo Micronesia UTC+10:00 — the states of Chuuk and Yap UTC+11:00 — the states of Kosrae and Pohnpei Moldova UTC+07:00 — the provinces of Khovd, Uvs and Bayan-Ölgii UTC+08:00 — most of the country Montenegro UTC+12:00 — main territory of New Zealand UTC+12:45 — Chatham Islands UTC+10:00 — most of the country UTC+11:00 — Autonomous Region of Bougainville (

Bougainville Standard Time) Portugal UTC (WET) — Madeira and the main territory of Portugal Paraguay UTC+03:00 (Arabia Standard Time) Romania UTC+02:00 (Kaliningrad Time) — Kaliningrad Oblast UTC+03:00 (Moscow Time) — Most of European Russia and all railroads throughout Russia UTC+04:00 (Samara Time) — Astrakhan Oblast, Samara Oblast, Udmurtia, Ulyanovsk Oblast UTC+05:00 (Yekaterinburg Time) — Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Khanty-Mansia, Kurgan Oblast, Orenburg Oblast, Perm Krai, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Tyumen Oblast, and Yamalia UTC+06:00 (Omsk Time) — Kemerovo Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast and Tomsk Oblast UTC+07:00 (Krasnoyarsk Time) — Altai Krai, Altai Republic, Khakassia, Krasno

yarsk Krai and Tuva UTC+08:00 (Irkutsk Time) — Buryatia and Irkutsk Oblast UTC+09:00 (Yakutsk Time) — Amur Oblast, western Sakha Republic, and Zabaykalsky Krai UTC+10:00 (Vladivostok Time) — The Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Magadan Oblast, Primorsky Krai, and central Sakha Republic UTC+11:00 (Srednekolymsk Time) — eastern Sakha and Sakhalin Oblast UTC+12:00 (Kamchatka Time) — Chukotka and Kamchatka Krai Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 1 UTC+03:00 (Arabia Standard Time) Senegal UTC+02:00 (South African Standard Time) — main territory UTC+03:00 — Prince Edward Islands Somalia UTC+01:00 (CET) — main territory of Spain Sri Lanka UTC−04:00 (AST) — Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands,

 Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands UTC−03:00 (FKST) — Falkland Islands UTC−02:00 — South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands UTC (GMT) — main territory of the United Kingdom, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey UTC+01:00 (CET) — Gibraltar UTC+02:00 (EET) — Akrotiri and Dhekelia UTC+06:00 — British Indian Ocean Territory United States UTC−11:00 (ST) — American Samoa, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll and Palmyra Atoll UTC−10:00 (HAT) — Hawaii, most of the Aleutian Islands, and Johnston Atoll UTC−09:00 (AKT) — most of the state of Alaska UTC−08:00 (PT) — the states on the Pacific coast, Nevada, and parts of Idaho UTC−07:00 (MT) — Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, parts of Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota

, and Texas UTC−06:00 (CT) — Gulf Coast, Tennessee Valley, U.S.

Interior Highlands, Great Plains, and most of Texas UTC−05:00 (ET) — the states on the Atlantic coast, the eastern two-thirds of the Ohio Valley, most of Michigan, Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island and Serranilla Bank UTC−04:00 (AT) — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Palmer Station UTC+10:00 (ChT) — Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands UTC+12:00 (unofficial) — Wake Island, McMurdo Station, and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station UTC−12:00 (unofficial) — Baker Island and Howland Island Uruguay 1 UTC+02:00 (CAT) Time zones were created in order to standardize the time of day around the world, because of the Earth's rotation. Before time zones and clocks, the sundial was used to keep local solar time, which varied throughout the year, depending on the season and by longitude. Each city kept its own local standard time based on longitude. With globalization, there came an increasing need for the standardization of time zones, particularly for transportation (namely railways) and communications across longitudes.

While mariners began developing a system for tracking time zones, the concept flourished in the 1800s, when railroads became a popular mode of transportation. Various methods for standardized time zone system were proposed throughout the mid-nineteenth century, which divided the United States into several time zones, each an hour apart. The worldwide system was proposed by Sandford Fleming in 1879, which divided the earth into 24 time zones, beginning at Greenwich, the 180th meridian, and each 15 ° apart. Today, these world time zones are followed as shown on the map above. Most countries follow the hourly deviations, though they do not always align with longitudes for convenience, in order to incorporate the entire country. Some countries, including India and Iran, use half-hour deviations instead, and some choose to use just one time zone for the entire country, like China.

ACOD~20121008 Daylight saving time (DST) 2016: The US needs to retire daylight savings and just have two time zones—one hour apart — Quartz Allison Schrager November 01, 2013 Daylight saving time in the US ends Sunday, part of the an annual ritual where Americans (who don’t live in Arizona or Hawaii) and residents of 78 other countries including Canada (but not Saskatchewan), most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand turn their clocks back one hour. It’s a controversial practice that became the official standard in America in 1966 and adjusted throughout the 1970s with the intent of conserving energy. The fall time change feels particularly hard because we lose another hour of evening daylight, just as the days grow shorter. It also creates confusion because countries that observe daylight saving change their clocks on different days . It would seem to be more efficient to do away with the practice altogether. The actual energy savings are minimal, if they exist at all . Frequent and uncoordinated time changes cause confusion, undermining economic efficiency. There’s evidence that regularly changing sleep cycles, associated with daylight saving, lowers productivity and increases heart attacks .

Being out of sync with European time changes was projected to cost the airline industry $147 million a year in travel disruptions. But I propose we not only end Daylight Saving, but also take it one step further. This year, Americans on Eastern Standard Time should set their clocks back one hour (like normal), Americans on Central and Rocky Mountain time do nothing, and Americans on Pacific time should set their clocks forward one hour. After that we won’t change our clocks again – no more daylight saving. This will result in just two time zones for the continental United States. The east and west coasts will only be one hour apart. Anyone who lives on one coast and does business with the other can imagine the uncountable benefits of living in a two-time-zone nation (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). It sounds radical, but it really isn’t. The purpose of uniform time measures is coordination. How we measure time has always evolved with the needs of commerce. According to Time and Date , a Norwegian newsletter dedicated to time zone information, America started using four time zones in 1883. Before that, each city had its own time standard based on its calculation of apparent solar time (when the sun is directly over-head at noon) using sundials.

That led to more than 300 different American time zones. This made operations very difficult for the telegraph and burgeoning railroad industry. Railroads operated with 100 different time zones before America moved to four, which was consistent with Britain’s push for a global time standard. The following year, at the International Meridian Conference, it was decided that the entire world could coordinate time keeping based on the British Prime Meridian (except for France, which claimed the Prime Median ran through Paris until 1911). There are now 24 (or 25, depending on your existential view of the international date line) time zones, each taking about 15 degrees of longitude. Now the world has evolved further – we are even more integrated and mobile, suggesting we’d benefit from fewer, more stable time zones. Why stick with a system designed for commerce in 1883? In reality, America already functions on fewer than four time zones. I spent the last three years commuting between New York and Austin, living on both Eastern and Central time. I found that in Austin, everyone did things at the same times they do them in New York, despite the difference in time zone.

People got to work at 8am instead of 9am, restaurants were packed at 6pm instead of 7pm, and even the TV schedule was an hour earlier. But for the last three years I lived in a state of constant confusion, I rarely knew the time and was perpetually an hour late or early. And for what purpose? If everyone functions an hour earlier anyway, in part to coordinate with other parts of the country, the different time zones lose meaning and are reduced to an arbitrary inconvenience. Research based on time use surveys found Americans’ schedules are determined by television more than daylight. That suggests in effect, Americans already live on two time zones. It’s true that larger time zones would seem to cheat many people out of daylight by removing them further from their true solar time. But the demands of global commerce already do that. Many people work in companies with remote offices or have clients in different parts of the country. It’s become routine to arrange schedules to coordinate people in multiple domestic time zones. Traders in California start their day at 5am to participate in New York markets.

True, not all Californians work on East Coast time, but research by economists Daniel Hamermesh, Catlin Meyers, and Mark Peacock showed communities are more productive when there’s more time coordination. Californians who work on Eastern time require services that can accommodate their schedule and see less of their families on Pacific time. Frequent travel between the coasts causes jet lag, robbing employees of productive work time. With a one-hour time difference, bicoastal travel would become almost effortless. It might make international business harder, but it’s hard to say for certain. The east coast would be seven hours behind continental Europe, but one hour closer to time zones in Asia. Also, the gains from more frequent inter-state communication might outweigh the cost of extra international coordination. In 1983, Alaska, which naturally spans four time zones, moved most of the state to a single time zone (except for an Native American reservation near Ketchikan and a few western Aleutian islands). The longitudinal distance of Alaska is nearly equal to the entire continental United States, yet the state functions, albeit with some tension, on one time zone. China has been on one time zone since 1949, despite naturally spanning five time zones.

Spain technically should be on Greenwich Mean Time but it is on Central European time. Many Spaniards believe being out of sync with solar time lowers productivity . But that is because the Spanish workday has not fully integrated with the rest of Europe. One major factor that used to throw workers off was a three-hour lunch break, but this practice of siesta has largely been abandoned in cities. Still, this shows that optimal time zones account for commerce and common cultural borders, not just longitude. The problems Spain has, being on Central European Time, wouldn’t apply to America because states are better economically integrated and already follow similar work schedules. Sure, moving the continental states to two time zones would cause two-hour jumps between adjacent time zones and America won’t line up with the time zones of countries directly north and south, unless this catches on as a global trend. But the discontinuity ship already sailed when rich Western countries haphazardly adopted daylight saving and most other countries didn’t. Time is already arbitrary, why not make it work in our favor? Correction: A previous version of this item stated that Spanish workers and schoolchildren still take a three-hour break. It also clarifies the timing of Daylight Savings Time’s adoption in the US.

You can follow Allison on Twitter at @AllisonSchrager . We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com . The 20 Biggest Countries in the World Share By Matt Rosenberg Here's a listing of the twenty largest countries in the world by area, in both square kilometers and square miles.

Russia: 17,075,200 km2 (6,591,027 mi2) Canada: 9,984,670 km2 (3,854,082 mi2) United States: 9,631,418 km2 (3,717,727 mi2) China: 9,596,960 km2 (3,704,426 mi2) Brazil: 8,511,965 km2 (3,285,618 mi2) Australia: 7,686,850 km2 (2,967,124 mi2) India: 3,287,590 km2 (1,269,009 mi2) Argentina: 2,766,890 km2 (1,068,019 mi2) Kazakhstan: 2,717,300 km2 (1,048,877 mi2) Algeria: 2,381,74

0 km2 (919,352 mi2) Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 2,345,410 km2 (905,328 mi2) Mexico: 1,972,550 km2 (761,404 mi2)* Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data | Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions | US EPA Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data On This Page: Global Emissions by Gas At the global scale, the key greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are: Source: IPCC (2014) Exit based on global emissions from 2010.

Details about the sources included in these estimates can be found in the Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Exit Carbon dioxide (CO2) : Fossil fuel use is the primary source of CO2. The way in which people use land is also an important source of CO2, especially when it involves deforestation. CO2 can also be emitted from direct human-induced impacts on forestry and other land use, such as through deforestation, land clearing for agriculture, and degradation of soils. Likewise, land can also remove CO2 from the atmosphere through reforestation, improvement of soils, and other activities. Methane (CH4) : Agricultural activities, waste management, energy use, and biomass burning all contribute to CH4 emissions. Nitrous oxide (N2O) : Agricultural activities, such as fertilizer use, are the primary source of N2O emissions. Biomass burning also generates N2O.

Fluorinated gases (F-gases) : Industrial processes, refrigeration, and the use of a variety of consumer products contribute to emissions of F-gases, which include hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Black carbon is a solid particle or aerosol, not a gas, but it also contributes to warming of the atmosphere. Learn more about black carbon and climate change on our Causes of Climate Change page . Top of Page Global Emissions by Economic Sector Global greenhouse gas emissions can also be broken down by the economic activities that lead to their production. [1] Source: IPCC (2014) ; Exit based on global emissions from 2010. Details about the sources included in these estimates can be found in the Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Exit Electricity and Heat Production (25% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Industry (21% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from industry primarily involve fossil fuels burned on site at facilities for energy. This sector also includes emissions from chemical, metallurgical, and mineral transformation processes not associated with energy consumption and emissions from waste management activities. (Note: Emissions from industrial electricity use are excluded and are instead covered in the Electricity and Heat Production sector.) Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (24% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation. This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector. [2] Transportation (14% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector primarily involve fossil fuels burned for road, rail, air, and marine transportation. Almost all (95%) of the world's transportation energy comes from petroleum-based fuels, largely gasoline and diesel.

Buildings (6% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector arise from onsite energy generation and burning fuels for heat in buildings or cooking in homes. (Note: Emissions from electricity use in buildings are excluded and are instead covered in the Electricity and Heat Production sector.) Other Energy (10% of 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions): This source of greenhouse gas emissions refers to all emissions from the Energy sector which are not directly associated with electricity or heat production, such as fuel extraction, refining, processing, and transportation. Top of Page Trends in Global Emissions Source: Boden, T.A., Marland, G., and Andres R.J. (2015). Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions . Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2015. Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have significantly increased since 1900.

Since 1970, CO2 emissions have increased by about 90%, with emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributing about 78% of the total greenhouse gas emissions increase from 1970 to 2011. Agriculture, deforestation, and other land-use changes have been the second-largest contributors. [1] Emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases have also increased significantly since 1900. To learn more about past and projected global emissions of non-CO2 gases, please see the EPA report, Global Anthropogenic Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions: 1990-2020 . Top of Page Emissions by Country Source: Boden, T.A., Marland, G., and Andres, R.J. (2015). National CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Burning, Cement Manufacture, and Gas Flaring: 1751-2011 , Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S.

Department of Energy, doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2015.In 2011, the top carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters were China, the United States, the European Union, India, the Russian Federation, Japan, and Canada. These data include CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, as well as cement manufacturing and gas flaring. Together, these sources represent a large proportion of total global CO2 emissions. Emissions and sinks related to changes in land use are not included in these estimates. However, changes in land use can be important: estimates indicate that net global greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry, and other land use were over 8 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent, [2] or about 24% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. [3] In areas such as the United States and Europe, changes in land use associated with human activities have the net effect of absorbing CO2, partially offsetting the emissions from deforestation in other regions.

Question: What is the world's largest nation that is all in a single time zone?
Answer: CHINA